Surya Sen

Surya Sen (22 March 1894-12 January 1934), better known as Masterda, was a Bengali Indian revolutionary who led the 1930-1932 Indian Republican Army uprising in the Bengal Presidency, carrying out the Chittagong armory raid.

Biography
Surya Sen was born in Chittagong, Bengal Presidency, British Raj in 1894, and he became involved with the Indian independence movement while attending the Berhampore College, joining the Anushilan Samiti secret society. Sen became a teacher at the Nandankanan national school, and he was affectionately nicknamed Masterda, with "da" being an honorary suffix for his educational title. Sen took part in several protests against British rule and planned to launch an uprising against the British at Chittagong, a major British stronghold in the Bengal region; police tore some of his fingernails out when he refused to tell them about the plannned uprising. Sen recruited several students into the cause and acquired a small arsenal of weapons, and they formed the "Indian Republican Army". On 18 April 1930, the Indian students stormed the Chittagong armory and bloodlessly captured the city, but they failed to acquire machine guns, ruining their chances of an armed takeover. The guerrillas were forced to flee to the Jalalabad hill ranges, where they repelled an attack by Charles Johnson and several policemen. Sen ordered for his guerrillas to disperse and continue the uprising, and Surya's brother Nirmal Sen was killed when Ahsanullah Khan and the Indian Imperial Police found his hideaway. Sen would be captured in 1933 while he was on the run by himself, and he was hanged for treason on 12 January 1934.